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The view from the top is hopeful

Cameron Diaz during a trip to Peru last year. MTV is using A-list celebs to draw attention to social change on its new series, 4REAL. (KAREL NAVARRO / AP PHOTO)

By Bruce DeMaraEntertainment Reporter

Sat., April 12, 2008

As an actor and model, Cameron Diaz has travelled around much of the world.

But this time, she's gone to the top of it – i.e. the ancient Incan city of Machu Picchu – in a new, albeit temporary role as teacher.

Diaz is among a group of A-list celebrities taking part in an eight-part MTV series called 4REAL, aimed at showing the network's youthful audience examples of young leaders working for hope and change around the globe.

The first episode – airing Monday at 8 p.m. – features Diaz and series co-creator Sol Guy as they scale the Andes with Puma Singona, a Quechua shaman struggling to preserve the knowledge of his ancient culture in the modern world.

"People are definitely interested in what celebrities are doing so, yeah, it's a clever way to trick people into learning and participating," says Diaz.

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"Young people are doing extraordinary things around the world to try to really help their communities," adds Guy. "In a ... world of doom and gloom and all this negativity, we really wanted to tell these positive stories of things that were working and people that were doing these fantastic things."

Future episodes involve Joaquin Phoenix's visit to Yawanawa in the Amazon, Casey Affleck travelling to the Pawnee reservation in Oklahoma and rapper K'naan in Kibera, the largest slum in East Africa, in Nairobi, Kenya.

Monday's episode follows Diaz and Guy as they participate in a winter solstice ceremony and an insider's tour of Machu Picchu, where Singona is a guide. Along the way, they sleep rough, learn that young Peruvians are deserting their communities for the big cities and dodge a phalanx of paparazzi.

Diaz says the culture of the Quechua is under siege in an era of modernization and globalization.

"There's nothing wrong, there's nothing to be fixed in that culture. It's worked for so long, for thousands of years. (But) now we have these people who didn't used to have a problem with poverty who now do. So how do we help them preserve their culture as well as integrate?" Diaz said.

Diaz was also impressed with the simplicity and purity of Singona's teachings – passed down by his grandfather – and the emphasis on the four elements: earth, wind, fire and water. "It reminds us that everything comes from this planet. We don't go to some place else to get plastic," Diaz says.

"Aspirin and every medicine that we use to fight disease ... all of those things may be synthetic, but there's no Planet Synthetic. Every synthetic comes from something natural and then it's the process that man puts it through that synthesizes it."

Canada also features in the series, with Guy and actor Eva Mendes visiting community leader Liz Evans in Vancouver's drug- and crime-ridden Downtown Eastside.

"The message and the reality is that you don't have to fly halfway around the world to see issues and solutions," Guy says.

"I learned a lot down there, man, in my own neighbourhood. It changed the way I see people that are dealing with those issues. I'll never look at someone who's homeless or going through a drug addiction or mental instability (the same) again. I learned so much down there, as much as I did anywhere in Africa or South America."

The trip to Peru was a turning point for Diaz, who says she intends to find more ways to use her star power to educate others.

"This is the train I'm on. I'm in love with this planet. It's amazing, the people that I've met all around the world. In every place that I've gone, what I find are similarities more than any differences," she says.

"Everywhere that I've been, from Africa to Nepal to Paris, France to Iceland and Peru, the thing that I find is that we're all the same. We're all human beings, we all want the same things, we want to be loved, we want to be safe. Everybody is trying to achieve the same thing in their lifetime. That's a passion of mine, to help people understand how we all coexist on this planet."

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